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PUBLIC ART

at the Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center

Welcome to

the Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center

The venue is not just a place for performing artists but also holds various art pieces from artists from all over the United States. The Office of Public Art is happy to support the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center present all the art work spread throughout the building.

Mirror Helix

Lyle London, 2018

Quarrier Street Entrance

The ‘Mirror Helix’ is one of a series of Arizona artist Lyle London’s suspended works. The artwork incorporates color changing dichroic glass and is based on helical forms found in nature.

The spiral geometry characterizes natural phenomena as diverse as plant growth, the evolution of galaxies, and DNA and RNA which are the primary components of chromosomes.

The dichroic coating shifts color when seen with transmitted versus reflected light creating a dynamic symphony of color from every view.

Snow Storm

Kathy Bragg Curvy, 1985

Conference Hallway

As a lifelong working artist, Kathy Curry is best known for her vibrant flower paintings, still life’s and harbor scenes. She is a founding member of the WV Water Color Society. A native of Charleston, WV, she attended West Virginia University where she studied art and journalism. Her art education continued at UNC Chapel Hill, Augusta College, SCAD and La Romita School of Art in Umbria, Italy.

Cyberclash 2.0

Alison Helm, 2018

Upper Quarrier Street Lobby

Alison Helm’s work explores the contrasting forces of the universe (organic vs. geometric, strength vs. fragility) to reveal life’s many complexities and contradictions. Her sculptures use abstraction to form a symbolic language that captures movement and the transfer of energy. Helm is the director of the School of Art & Design in the College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University while also maintaining a studio in Morgantown, WV.

Bursts of color, light, and mirrors create a mysterious galaxy in Cyberclash 2.0 that aims to reflect the power and beauty of nature.

Grace Martin Taylor Gallery

Grace Martin Taylor

Parlor Hallway

Artist Grace Martin Frame Taylor (1903-1995) was born in Morgantown. A painter, printmaker, and art educator, she studied at West Virginia University and then at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In addition to producing an immense body of paintings, prints and collages in a variety of realis and abstract styles, Taylor enjoyed a lengthy career as a teacher and administrator at the Mason College of Fine Arts and Music in Charleston.

Grace Martin Taylor Gallery

Grace Martin Taylor

Parlor Hallway

A Morgantown native, Taylor was a founding member of the Allied Artists of West Virginia and the groups’ president from 1932 to 1934. Since her death in 1995, her art has been exhibited widely; almost notably at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Academy of Design, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum of Women in Arts and the British Museum.

Sanctity of Water

Alison Helm, 2022

Atrium Hallway

The concept of water, its various forms, ice, vapor, liquid, the life it represents, where it comes from, and where it goes is a curiosity for Helm. Immensely influenced by the landscape, she wanted to focus on the origins of water and how water seeps out of the rooks from fresh springs in WV.

The vertical gouge was incorporated to represent the core drills for blasting roadways through the landscape as an architectural or geometric contrast to all the organic shapes found in natural rocks.

Every element is an abstraction or fabrication and, therefore, a stylization of the actual nature that we see filtered through Helm’s influences and experiences.

Barrie Kaufman is Charleston, West Virginia artist who works in mixed media, including glass, printmaking, and painting. Her work often addresses a narrative story. Barrie has exhibited all over the world winning awards and grants.

A Single Drop

Barrie Kaufman, 2018

Terrace Hallway

Discovery

Continuum

Jonathan Cox, 1999

Jonathan Cox, 2003

Terrace Hallway

Atrium Hallway

Jonathan Cox is a University of Florida graduate and received and M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design. His wood sculptures can be seen all over the United States. Cox now teaches at Marshall University and maintains a studio in Huntington, WV.

This art work is a tribute to his father who was a boat builder and his favorite wood was mahogany. This piece and its placements serve as a dedication to that memory.

Chalkboard #1

Bernie Pearce, 1990

Upper Quarrier Street Lobby

Bernie Peace combines color-reduction woodblock monoprints with hand applied paint in his “Stele” series. Chalkboard #1 displays hieratic symbols, recalling the early works of Abstract Expressionistic painter Jackson Pollock. Peace maintains a studio in Wheeling, WV.

Enamel on wood

Harold Edwards, 2018

Box Office Corridor

Harold Edwards is a native West Virginian and graduated from West Virginia State College and Marshall University Graduate Collage. In addition to making art, Harold spent nearly 40 years teach in the state’s public schools as well Ohio University and Virginia Common Wealth University.

His work is best described as an explosion of systematic energy. Edwards uses the Fibonacci system, a mathematical system that employs rhythmic progression to determine color and pattern.

The series executed for the Charleston Coliseum and Convention center is based on the four zip codes which Harold has lived in Charleston, WV.

Through the use of energetic strokes and intense color, Toth adds passion and mystery to her paintings.

Ephor of Antiquity: Crete

Caryl Toth, 1990

Upper Quarrier Street Lobby

Caryl Toth’s abstract expressionist paintings are richly layered with palpable textures, intense color and energetic strokes that pulsate throughout the space of work. Toth sees the creative process as one of journey and discovery, and considers “openness and not knowing” to be necessary conditions for her art. The artist maintains a studio in Winfield, WV.

Power to the People Park

Terrace Club

I Wuz A Buzz

& Wings of Desire

Charles Jupiter Hamilton’s vivid carved wood sculptural creatures are influenced by animalistic imagery found in the arts of Africa, the Pacific, and South America.

Charles Jupiter Hamilton, 1994/1995/2010

The artist also creates captivating acrylic canvases and self-pulled block prints that combine the vitality of contemporary art with a rich and resonant figurative imagery. Hamilton is highly expressive and known for a satirical visual humor. His conflicting colors, elaborate patterns and painterly casualness, come together in a kind of “new world primitivism.”

Posey

Charly’s popular visions of an art life are laced with his gonzo enthusiasm, child-like mischief and and eye full of wild weather. He maintains a studio in Charleston, WV.

Paradise on Greenbrier River

This picture was taken in Monroe County, WV

Frank Herrera, 1989

Parlor A

Frank Herrera was a photographer from West Virginia who specialized in large format black and white photographs from locations around the world, but his passion was the landscapes and people of his native West Virginia. He had a long career in photography that included teaching, commercial, and fine art photography.

Scenic West Virginia

Frank Herrera, 1983

Parlor A

In 1986 Herrera was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to document the landscape of West Virginia within the context of a cluster of three crosses erected throughout the East Coast. The resultant body of work, termed "Cross Reference," was exhibited across the country and featured in national media.

Strata

Dierk Van Keppel, 2018

Atrium

Van Keppel’s glassworks sits at the intersection of ancient and modern technology. The inspiration for “Strata” evolved from his visit to the “Coal Forest” display in the West Virginia State Museum. The concept for the work is in context with the chaos and super position of Earth’s process

Good Night

Paula Clendenin, 1993

Conference Hallway

A printmaker and painter, Paula Clendenin combines the West Virginia landscape with human forms to create what she calls “archetypal symbols.”

Building up sensual layers of luminous paint on her large-scale canvases, Clendenin uses oil sticks to draw on forms and create a textural richness.

Back Water

Susan Poffenbarger, 1994

Upper Quarrier Street Lobby

A 1980 trip to Ireland inspired Susan Poffenbarger to examine West Virginia’s natural beauty. Large panoramic landscapes are the arena for Poffenbarger’s paintings. The artist says her goal is “to balance West Virginia’s inherent tranquil beauty with its stark ruggedness.” She selects the landscape according to her own emotional response, preferring to work directly out of doors. The artist maintains a studio in Dunbar, WV.

Way out There

Blake Wheeler, 2023

Steps outside Coliseum

The mural depicts a lone hiker and his dog in a vast West Virginia landscape. The painting revolves around the themes of escapism, solitude, the passage of time, and the connection between people and nature.

Way out There

Blake Wheeler, 2023

Steps outside Coliseum

Each section is a different time of day that forms one large landscape done in three distinct color pallets. The nature of the steps helps to create a 3D effect as the things closest to the viewer were painted large with more detail and the background elements were painted smaller with less detail.

New Species

Chris Ashworth, 1990

Conference Hallway

Chris Ashworth uses color and pattern as the true subjects of his art. “New Species Evolve and Prosper While Established Ones Vanish” is a monotype made by using a silk screen (serigraph) process in which the pigment is pushed through a fine mesh screen onto the paper surface. In 1990, “New Species” was shown in Exhibition 280, Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV, and in the Allied Artists of WV Annual, Sunrise Museum, Charleston, WV.

Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center

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